These stunning sunflower paintings were created by the Grade 3 students after they looked at the sunflower paintings and drawings created by Vincent Van Gogh.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 57 2015

I found some images online from Vincent Van Gogh’s sketchbooks and I always show these to the students to reinforce how important their art journals are in the process of creating their artworks.

secretmuseum_vangogh2

The students also looked at photos of sunflowers which grew outside our grade 5 classrooms earlier this year

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 15

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 11

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 8

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 3

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 4

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 6

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 10

and at photos inside a magnificent book by David Douglas Duncan titled ‘Sunflowers for Van Gogh’.

David Douglas Duncan war photographer

I was lucky to stumble across this lovely book for $3 at the Salvation

cover sunflowers for van gogh

Army Opportunity Shop in Werribee. What a find! The author and photographer, David Douglas Duncan, fell in love with Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings and travelled to France to create a book devoted to the fields of sunflowers in France. I often find fantastic art books on the bookshelves of Op Shops and they are always really cheap! Op Shopping is one of my favourite pastimes as you just never know what you might stumble upon! The students loved looking through this book and it was out, on their work tables, throughout the creation of these wonderful artworks. They were fascinated by the variety of the sunflowers and that they were so different to the sunflowers that grew in our school garden beds.

sunflowers in cambridge primary school garden 2015 14

As you can see the grade 3 students spent many, many weeks on these art works and they are, rightfully, very pleased with them.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 60 2015

The students started by doing a 10 minute pencil draft in their journals of 4 different sunflowers – front view, side view, dying with petals dropping, not yet open.

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 72

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 70

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 68

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 67

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 75

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 83

All the students found these 4 views challenging but were willing to give it a go in their journal. They then bought their journal to me for a quick one on one chat about their drawings, full of praise, of course, and directed specifically at their ability level – differentiation!

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 94

They then drew a vase of sunflowers 10 minute pencil draft. And again bought this to me for a brief chat. Most children drew their sunflowers in the vase facing in different directions (hooray!) as the brief practice of the four views freed them up to do this. I did not make any direct references to how they were to draw their vase in their journal, or that they were to include the four views from their previous drawing. It was all learning by doing – and isn’t that the best kind of learning!

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 90

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 89

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 88

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 85

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 81

grade 3 sunflower drawing painting 2015 76

So that is 2 steps before they could even commence painting!

The students commenced by drawing a faint pencil line at about a third of the way up from the bottom of the paper. This gave them a line between the tabletop and the wall. This was suggested by a student who pointed out that Vincent had given his flower vase somewhere to sit by creating a table top rather than the vase just finishing at the bottom of the painting – hooray, hooray for improved observational skills! There was a huge variety in the colours used and some children created fancy tablecloths while others decorated the background wall. Most students painted their background with dry block paints giving it a wishy washy watercolour appearance.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 59 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 47 2015

I usually write up a basic framework to create the art work during discussion with my first class at that grade level. I then revise and add to the framework through discussion with the other grades. All students are well aware that it is only a guideline and they are free to pursue their own ideas throughout the process. This allows the students to work independently, with a reference up the front if they need it, as they work their way back and forth, stopping and starting, between parts of the complex work. I scribble in alternatives at each step, sometimes as they appear, and make sure the materials are available on the resource table, to aid the students independence.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 48 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 19 2015

The next step was the sunflower stems. Most students chose to print the stems onto the background using cardboard scraps. Again, this created a huge variety of different looking stems.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 14 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 3 2015

They then painted the sunflowers carefully, most students leaving one stem without a head. Most students chose to paint their sunflowers using basic school acrylic paint. This accentuated the difference between the wishy washy background walls and the stark, bright, solid colours of the sunflowers.

which is created by Zart Art in Box Hill, Victoria, Australia as an alternative to Model Magic. My students have used both successfully. We found, as the weeks marched on, and some students had not created their Model Magic flowers, that it worked just as well when we started cutting corners to get finished. It was just as successful if you glued the flower on as soon as you made it, rather than wait for it to air dry, and you could paint it before it air dried as well.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 64 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 13 2015

To finish their amazing work of art the students cut and decorated a vase and made sure it was big enough to cover the stems! This was an hilarious learning adventure all on it’s own. I showed the students how to fold a kinder square in half, draw half a vase on one side, cut it out and get a whole vase. The shocked faces when their vase was way too thin or better still, in two separate pieces, as they had drawn their vase along the wrong side of the folded paper, were priceless! I am always pointing out to the students that mistakes are part of their learning so it was fantastic to watch them fiddling with the two sad, separate pieces of their vase, to figure out where they went wrong, so they wouldn’t do it again.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 45 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 46 2015

It was a very long, involved process from start to finish for this work, with many stops and starts in between, as work had to dry completely between many of the steps.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 44 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 43 2015

All the grade 3 students worked brilliantly and moved independently onto different parts of the work while waiting for other bits to dry.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 15 2015

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 14 2015

I am very proud of how committed the grade 3 students are to their art and how well they used their art time!!!

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 23 2015

And I’m sure you will agree that these are stunning artworks, some of which took 8 sessions to complete. All students, regardless of the level of their ability, were proud of their achievements.

grade 3 van gogh sunflowers painting 16 2015

And they made a gorgeous display. I can’t wait to put them all up at the art show! The Cambridge Primary School Art Show is on the 23rd and 24th October!!! Just 4 weeks away – aaaggghhhhh!

I saw a post, ages ago, on one of my favourite art teacher blogs, ARTE A SCUOLA.COM, full of patterned landscapes which I thought were gorgeous. As I have done with a lot of this blog’s brilliant ideas, I tucked the idea away on MY PINTEREST BOARDS, saving it up for just the right time, which happened to be at the start of our school year 2015.

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing 10

I sort of went a bit Zentangle mad at the start of this year and ended up with the grade 3s doing Zentangle hands,

Grade 3 zentangle hand drawing 6

the grade 4s doing Zentangle feet

Grade 4 footangle 37 2015

Grade 4 footangle 56 201

and these coloured Zentangle landscapes being done by the grade 5 students.

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing 9

All three grade levels started off looking at and discussing examples of patterns and zentangles from MY PATTERNS AND ZENTANGLES PINTEREST BOARD on the projection screen. It was then time to get into a detailed pattern drawing frame of mind so I printed off about 15 pattern sample idea sheets, also on my patterns and zentangles pinterest board, for each table and then each student was given a grid sheet of 20 squares to glue into their art journal. The students had to use scrap paper and a pencil to come up with a pattern that they liked and then use a black fine liner to fill one of the grid squares on their sheet, thus creating their own pattern resource in their art journal. The aim was to finish off 5 grid squares at the end of the first session.

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing

The grade 5 students, at their next session, discussed landscapes and looked at a couple of the samples from ARTE A SCUOLA.COMThe students suggested writing up a list of elements for the landscape on the whiteboard which they could follow while they were drawing their landscape outlines in pencil. I reinforced with the students that the list was to be seen as a guideline rather than a recipe and they could add or take away elements as they saw fit. The landscape was drawn on A3 cartridge paper.

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing 46

All students brought their pencil landscape shapes to me for a brief one on one discussion directed at their specific ability level – DIFFERENTIATION! Is the work balanced? What can you do to your tree so it doesn’t look so top heavy? Which elements have you put in your middleground?

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing 13

Interestingly every grade 5 ‘discovered’ that if their landscape included a body of water it “just didn’t look right” or it “made me feel weird” unless the edge of the land behind the water was straight/horizontal – hooray, no more slanted lakes or rivers!!!

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing 28

So all students then went over their pencil landscape outlines with thick black texta and commenced the pattern work using thick coloured pencils or coloured textas. There was only one rule for the pattern work, once you have used a pattern you cannot use it again!

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing 13

These were wonderful sessions for stopping half way for a “studio walk” around the art room where the children move from table to table quietly and look at each others unfinished work. The “oohs” and “aahs” and discussions about the work were fantastic! And, no, it is not just copying, if you see a pattern that you like on someone else’s work, and get an idea for your own work from that. Hadn’t we already been doing just that with the idea sheets on the tables??? And could you possibly reproduce such an intricate pattern EXACTLY the same????

Grade 5 zentangle landscape drawing 21

I was astounded with the amount of effort some of the students put into these pieces! In hindsight A3 was probably too big to cover with such intricate patterns. These artworks took much longer to finish that I anticipated and the level of concentration required to get a fair bit done in one session was just too much for some students. However, I’m sure the students would say it was worth it when you can see the quality of work which was produced. Whatever their ability level, every student felt a great sense of achievement when the work was finally finished!

We started off by looking at several David Hockney swimming pool paintings, from the 1960s, on the projector screen. I use MY PINTEREST BOARDS to store and then display images on the projector so I don’t have to clog up my laptop with squillions of art images.

The discussion was loud and vigorous with the students pointing out that it was interesting to choose that splash moment to paint rather than the person on the end of the board or in the middle of the dive, etc.

And in each grade the comment was made that the swimmer in this painting looked like he was wearing a nappy!?! Oh the highs and lows of discussions with Grade 3!!! This painting was excellent for talking about the differences between a swimming/floating body and a standing/walking body. I don’t think that was why he painted it but – Thank you, David Hockney!

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 18

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 25

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 63

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 62

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 61

So as I have been gradually introducing the students to using an art journal this year they had to start by doing a quick drawing, 5 – 10 minutes only, in pencil, in their journal, of themselves as a floating/swimming body. This was then brought to me for a quick personal discussion during which I write or draw a few prompts/praises on their draft. These are directly related to their drawings, at their ability level, and I ask that they try to incorporate the ideas generated from our short, personal discussion into their ‘good copy’. Yes, folks, DIFFERENTIATION is alive and well in this Visual Arts classroom!!!

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 6

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 60

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 59

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 58

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 56

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 55

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 53

The first time I did this in their book was hilarious. They were all horrified that I was writing on top of their drawing but they now all have a much more secure idea of what a rough draft is and don’t feel so precious about every rough drawing any more.

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 35

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 66

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 11

Once the students had started their drawing /painting on A3 cartridge paper I quickly called a halt as most were using grey lead pencil and drawing a teeny tiny swimming version of themselves. What happened to filling the space with their body? So the grey lead pencils were put away as soon as their draft was finished and the students moved bravely, straight onto using the oil pastels, to create their swimmer. Ahhh, much better!

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 2

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting dra

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 37

Once their swimmer drawing was finished they tackled the challenge of pool water reflection lines using white oil pastel.

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 12

Grade 3 David Hockney style swimmer painting drawing 21

The students then painted on the water using dry block poster paint with the paint magically resisting the oil in the pastels!!! Yes, I know, sometimes the old techniques are the best ones for the job!

POSITIVES:

Rich, engaging activity

fantastic discussion

lots of students came into the art room talking about the David Hockney images they had looked up on Pinterest or Google images after discussing this with their family about what they were doing

comparing rough drafts with final pieces of work to demonstrate the changes and improvements in their final piece

all students were very proud of their work, regardless of their ability level

they make a fantastic display!

NEGATIVES

I don’t think there were any!!!

You can see more David Hockney style swimmers inspired, like me, by USE YOUR COLOURED PENCILS here in these links

Hi, I'm Shell, Welcome to the Back Art Room Blog which is about my Visual Arts program and its place in Primary Visual Arts education in Victoria, Australia. I teach Visual Arts at Cambridge Primary School in Hoppers Crossing so here you will find examples of my students amazing artworks, all sorts of things that happen in and around my art room, as well as my thoughts on Visual Arts education and whatever else I can squeeze in! I want to reflect on my own teaching and learning and interact, learn from and be inspired by others.

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